


Intarsia

by ExpatGirl



Series: Maybe Sprout Wings [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel True Forms, Episode: s09e03 I'm No Angel, Gen, Human Castiel, Kindness, Pain, Pre-Slash, Sigils, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:22:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5640631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExpatGirl/pseuds/ExpatGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Thoughts of possession lead him, naturally, to all the ways a body and the person in it might be violated. He needs warding.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intarsia

“What’s happening?”

Castiel addresses these words to the empty air as he startles awake. He fell asleep without being consulted, and wakes up that way, too.

For perhaps half a second, he does not know the answer to that question, or to any others. Then the blessed wave of forgetfulness recedes, leaving him stranded.

He stands and tries out the body he now inhabits.

Being newly alive is a lot like being dead. Oh, Castiel was _alive_ before, of course, alive in ways he can scarcely contemplate now within the limits of his recently-inherited brain. (He swears that he can feel the individual synapses spark to life and stretch to meet each other in a way that, he hopes, will resemble coherency.) Angels are the ceaseless motion of light in the void, of power and breath, moving over the face of the waters.

He knows being alive.

And that is why this, now, is a kind of death. The damp noise of his own breath as it leaves his mouth is a dirge; the humble muscle thudding heavy in its ribcage is a knell. Every sensation that hits him (and they all hit him--raw and bright and too much _too much_ ) reminds him that he may _be_ here, but _he_ isn’t here. He feels as though he’s been cut off. That’s the only description he can manage: cut off. His true form is there, somewhere. But without his grace to bind it to his consciousness, into a unified whole, it’s nothing but a dead weight, paralyzed and unfeeling, beyond his reach. He remembers that last, great roar, every working eye ablaze, talons outstretched, teeth bared and then...and then.

Nothing.

 _Not nothing_. Castiel takes stock of what he now possesses: a body with four limbs, of untested strength but reasonably sure movement; two eyes, front-facing, in the way of predators. This, at least, is familiar—but _only_ _two_ , which is not. And only able to see a very narrow spectrum of light and color.

Detecting motion is another issue. And there is...body language, to contend with. Facial movement, especially. How do they differentiate one kind ( _Good to see you, buddy_ ) from another ( _Get away from me, you freak_ )? He has very little idea.

Dean, he’s figured out with something approaching forty percent accuracy. With Sam, who's always been more angelic in his thinking—that line of ruthlessness and penitence running through him, as hard as flint—Cas can manage about sixty percent. At least on good days.

But even with his apprenticeship under the Winchesters, Castiel knows he’s ill-prepared for the world at large. There are nigh on seven billion people on this planet, in their multitudes, like stars. He must take at face value—literally—every person he meets until he learns otherwise.

This is a terrifying notion for a creature that, until four days ago, could usually read the many-personed expressions of his siblings as easily as his own.

Hunger is another revelation. He understood it chemically, physiologically, before. It’s a process, as everything human is. Strange that so many think of themselves as things that _were_ rather than things that were _happening_. But perhaps it is easier for them to think that way. Maybe he should do the same.

Hunger, he learns, is not a process, not from here. It is...it’s a compulsion. It’s a drive bordering so closely on possession that, at one point, Castiel has to stop and ask himself if he’s still ‘in there’, and he isn’t entirely sure of the answer. He’s felt this way before, but he’d always assumed that was only due to the presence of Famine. Not so, he’s discovering.

The thought of food derails him. He hasn’t eaten since yesterday morning. Tasting individual molecules and feeling individual atoms usually repulsed him before. As with most angels, sugar, with its simple structure, has always been the easiest for him to understand. Hamburgers. He wonders if he'll still like them now that the lingering effects of Jimmy’s tenure with him have been obliterated. He hopes so. Eating them had made him happy. Alcohol, coffee: these he had come to enjoy, not so much for their flavor but for their effects, but they had made him happy, too.

 _Stop thinking about food_ , he chastises himself, but finds he can’t.

He buys a candy bar. He eats it, and the compulsion eases. Glucose flooding his system, he tells himself, maintaining homeostasis. All these processes to maintain a kind of standing still.

Well, Heaven and earth aren’t so different in some ways.

Thoughts of possession lead him, naturally, to all the ways a body and the person in it might be violated. He needs warding.

An anti-possession tattoo, like those worn by hunters, is probably a good idea. The idea of a demon sliding its way down his throat, of a formerly human soul taking his newly human body and trapping him even more, makes his stomach do strange, unpleasant things, things that remind him of facing Pestilence, for some reason.

But then...his siblings. His family, so vast in their absence, a cacophony of silence so profound that it’s like screaming in his head. He wishes for their voices, even though he knows what those voices will be saying. Angels are pack animals.  Just one of their many wolfish tendencies. They are not meant for solitude (no, not even him).

 _And who culled the pack_ , _Castiel?_ _Who injured that body?_

He shakes his head.

He does not like being alone. He is a multitude made sole.

But there’s no time for sentimentality here. He is hunted. They want him dead, and he would rather not be dead. The Winchesters won’t be able to find him if he’s dead.

 _Warding_ , he reminds himself. He has to prioritize.

He understands how money works—again, mostly in theory. It seems a needlessly indirect system, an extra step that seems to add nothing. The values of things often seem arbitrary. He doesn’t know if what he has will get him what he wants. What he needs.

 _That hasn’t changed either_ , he thinks wryly.

There’s something under that thought, something slippery and shapeless, faceless but sounding faintly of _Dean_ , rising up to meet him. He has a moment of panic, intense to the point that he feels the eleven ounce lump of muscle powering him seize up. If he sees its face he’ll die, he knows he’ll die, an angelic instinct so deep in him that he turns his thoughts back towards his murderous brothers and finds it a comfort.

In many ways, limiting his senses to five—he doesn’t think he has a sixth—serves to make everything overwhelming. Deprived of their usual near-infinite channels, sensory inputs hit him like a flood, slamming into him full force. The city reminds him of Hell, the rush and push of it pulling at his every seam, following an order he can’t fathom.

Orders. _Orders._ He can work with those. He knows how to give and to receive them. There are only two possible outcomes: you obey (nominally, at least, and Castiel is a master of nominal obedience) or you don’t (here, too, he displays a certain kind of mastery).

An order then: _Soldier, take up your shield._

“Right,” he says, only realizing it's out loud once it’s spoken. He looks cautiously around him, but no one seems to have noticed him. Good. Now he just needs that on a cosmically larger scale.

There are three tattoo parlors within walking distance, according to the phone book. He picks the nearest one. There’s a cart selling grilled meat and hotdogs across the street, and the smell of it is pleasing. His underfed body pulls him up sharply, distracting him from his mission. He thinks again of compulsion, of possession. After a few moments, he turns and goes in the shop.

The door chime is overly loud, as everything else is, hitting the membrane of his ear with the force of a gunshot. But he does not jump, not this time. He’s had four days to learn how to not jump.

More ominous is the metallic drone of needles, more wasp than bee. He can feel the clouded sting of it against his skin already.

 _It’s just pain_ , he tells himself. _You’re already well-acquainted_. _You’re not a child._

But this is new pain. It’s pain he cannot guess yet, whose color and taste he doesn’t know. It’s the not-knowing that nearly undoes him, he who has spent his life not-knowing things on command.

He hopes neither the smiling woman at the desk nor the blond man holding the needle gun will notice him sweating. Sweating is very unpleasant, for everyone involved.

Castiel writes out what he needs, deliberating over each stroke of the pen. The quirks of his mother tongue trip him up in a way they never normally would. Wording matters, as wording always does. A mis-print could kill him, an inkblot could topple him. He hopes the man with the gun has true aim.

 _Not quite_ , he thinks, looking down at his work. It needs a central sigil, something powerful enough to summon and repel at once. Something that every angel will sense and immediately turn from, without pausing to think why, or even realizing that they’ve done so.

Suddenly, he knows what to put; he’s used it before. He thinks of an old joke Uriel used to tell, and laughs to himself.

“Sorry,” he says, to the receptionist—a woman with astonishing green eyes and a tattoo of a bird in flight under her collar bone. “I need...may I have another piece of paper, please?”

He feels pulled taut, a dry hide on hooks, ready to split. He’s unsure of what the protocol is here, among these people. Their skin bears tokens of their belonging, and his must bear a token of his exclusion. They wear a different kind of warding, not so dissimilar to the kind he used to be able to feel every time he moved.

Gone now. No matter.

He looks at the woman. Her expression is kind, perhaps a little concerned, but she holds out a sheaf of paper to him with a gentle smile. He finds himself returning it, lowering his gaze, unsure why. There are several freckles spangling her nose. He can see flecks of red-gold in her irises.

“Are your eyes really that color?” he blurts, before he can stop himself.

She blinks once—ox-eyed and heavy-lashed, lovely, but he’s seen lovelier—her confusion evident, before it slips into something else, a glimmer he can’t quite place, but finds he enjoys. “The real deal. Are yours?” she asks, raising a brow.

“They...yes. Yes,” he says, feeling stupid in the face of her dauntless smile. “Thank you for the paper.”

“No problem, honey.”

When it’s done, he shows it to her, and holds out the crumpled collection of bills that make up his entire fortune. “Will this be enough?”

She smiles again. “For you, hon? Sure.” She studies it for a moment. “What’s it say? Is that...Thai?”

“No,” he says. “Much older. It’s a...a…” He struggles to translate it effectively in his head. Enochian’s precision, its power, comes from its tone, from the intent behind it. It is very hard to explain the intent behind this.

“A prayer?” she offers, handing him back the paper.

“Yeah,” he says, laughing at the irony of it, a prayer of anti-intercession. “A prayer. For protection. It needs to be precise. I...errors would be...unfortunate.”

“Yeah, I got you. Don’t worry. In fact, I’ll make the stencil from this directly. That way you know it’s right. Just give Dave your money and show him where you want it.”

He feels too big for his skin when he finally sits down in the chair and falls back, though he knows there’s no risk of him burning it away now. He’s flat on his back, almost, and it strikes him that there are a great many vital organs in the human body that are almost absurdly unprotected. He can see the jump of his pulse in the plane of his stomach. The sight fascinates and unsettles him.

Dave, the man with the gun ( _Not a gun_ , he corrects himself, _a machine_. _No one’s got a gun._ ) talks to him in quiet words as he goes through the process, step-by-step, and Castiel tries not to remember that this, too has been a method of torture employed on him before.

But he reminds himself of the power of intention, and this man’s intentions are kind, his words are meant to soothe and calm, not frighten; they are meant to make him feel involved rather than helpless. He does not flinch as his skin is cleaned or the stencil applied. He has a lifetime of experience in not flinching, and he draws on it now. He makes himself the picture of stillness. And yet, for some reason, the receptionist ( _Beth,_ he remembers, a safe name, you could build a house on it) comes over to him, and takes his hand. She tells him how great he’s doing, that the tattoo will look awesome when it’s done. He thinks distantly of Dean, and isn’t sure why. The eyes, perhaps.

“As long as it works,” Castiel says, between gritted teeth. Her brow furrows, but she says nothing, just squeezes the hand she’s holding as the machine hums to life.

The first prick of the needle immolates him. He bites back a sound. All that comes out is a slightly louder breath.

“I know,” Dave says, above the noise, “the first few minutes are the roughest. It’ll get easier as your skin adjusts to the feeling.”

His skin doesn’t adjust.

Dave periodically reminds him to breathe, and Castiel nods, and obeys. Beth continues to hold his hand, and he, his tongue.

The pain staggers him, pushes him to the limits of what his newly-minted nerves can take, and past it. But it is given in order to protect, he accepts it out of trust, with gratitude. These people are kind. That will linger after the pain retreats.

When it’s over, they apply some sort of antiseptic cream and a clean bandage, with instructions for aftercare Castiel isn’t even sure he has the means to carry out. He doesn’t mention this. He wishes them both a good day, because he has heard it said, and because he means it. Then he walks out onto the rush hour street and feels the aftershocks of the needle still singing in his skin, hot and tender, and imagines that it is the power of the invocation pulsing through him.

He’s alone.

He wants to go home. He’s never wanted anything quite so badly, but he simply can’t see where there is to get to. He needs to plan his next move, now that he _can_ move. He needs to get to Sam and Dean without endangering either of them. _Just get to them._ _That_ , he thinks, _will make everything clearer._ _As long as we’re together, things will make make sense._

It’s good to have faith again. He almost feels the flare of wings.

He starts walking.

**Author's Note:**

> "I'm No Angel" kind of flummoxed me for a lot of reasons. One of which was the fact that they have a newly-human Castiel getting a _tattoo_ , and they don't even show it. He's only been human* for a few days. That's got to be the apex of pain and sensation! But instead they focused on...hotdogs and boobs. Which, OK. 
> 
> So here, have this. :)
> 
> *"Human" used _very_ broadly, since angels and humans are fundamentally different creatures. For "human" think "mortal".
> 
> Edited to add: I mean [ this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intarsia) kind of intarsia, rather than the knitting kind. Though the knitting kind could work here, too!


End file.
